Abstract
In the present work, the immobilization of gelatin as biopolymer on two types of implantable biomaterials, polyimide and titanium, was compared. Both materials are known for their biocompatibility while lacking cell-interactive behavior. For both materials, a pre-functionalization step was required to enable gelatin immobilization. For the polyimide foils, a reactive succinimidyl ester was introduced first on the surface, followed by covalent grafting of gelatin. For the titanium material, methacrylate groups were first introduced on the Ti surface through a silanization reaction. The applied functionalities enabled the subsequent immobilization of methacrylamide modified gelatin. Both surface modified materials were characterized in depth using atomic force microscopy, static contact angle measurements, confocal fluorescence microscopy, attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy and X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy. The results indicated that the strategies elaborated for both material classes are suitable to apply stable gelatin coatings. Interestingly, depending on the material class studied, not all surface analysis techniques are applicable.
Highlights
Surface modification of biomaterials to improve the final biocompatibility and/or the cell-interactive behavior of implants has gained increasing interest over the last decades [1,2,3,4,5].Langer et al modified the surface of poly(glycerol-co-sebacic acid) membranes with peptides containing an RGD ligand sequence to improve the attachment of photoreceptor layers in the retina [6]
The nitrene intermediates can lead to the formation of amines, nitro or nitroso compounds and even ring expansion is possible [38]
Two biocompatible implant materials were surface-functionalized with gelatin with the aim to increase their cell-interactive properties
Summary
Surface modification of biomaterials to improve the final biocompatibility and/or the cell-interactive behavior of implants has gained increasing interest over the last decades [1,2,3,4,5]. Our research group reported on the potential of gelatin-based scaffolds for tissue engineering due to their cell-interactive properties [23,24,25,26]. We aim at applying gelatin as implant coating material for both polyimide and titanium. Both materials are biocompatible but lack the required cell-interactive properties. Cell interactive property of this material, reactive succinimidyl esters will be introduced on the PI surface enabling the subsequent coupling of gelatin. Weng et al have reported on the coupling of azide-functionalized gelatin to Ti-O surfaces obtained using unbalanced magnetron sputtering [31] They showed that the surface modification enabled the attachment of human endothelial cells. The present paper focuses on an in depth comparison of the surface functionalization of two implantable materials including polymers (i.e., polyimide) and metals (i.e., titanium)
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